Dark that Follows
by Pixieblade
Summary: Set after the Kami-sama arc. Hakkai lays down the law and Gojyo speaks his mind.
1. Temper Tantrum

Title: **Temper Tantrum**

Series: Saiyuki

Rating/Pairing: M/85

AN: Right after the Kami-sama arc. Hakkai lays down the law.

Lyrics:

**"Cold (But I'm Still Here)"**

Hello, I'm your martyr, will you be my gangster  
can you feel my trigger hand, moving further down your back  
when you hide, hide inside that body  
but just remember that when I touch you  
the more you shake, the more you give away

cold, but I'm still here, blind, 'cause I'm so blind, say never  
we're far from comfortable this time  
cold, now we're so cold, mine, and you're not mine, say never  
we're far from obvious this time

wait, another minute here, time will kill us after all  
now can you feel its second hand wrapped around your neck  
so fall into my eyes and fall into my lies  
but don't you forget  
the more you turn away, the more I want you to stay

cold, but I'm still here, blind, 'cause I'm so blind, say never  
we're far from comfortable this time  
cold, now we're so cold, mine, and you're not mine, say never  
we're far from obvious this time

you're so endearing, you're so beautiful,  
well I don't look like they do, and I don't love like they do  
but I don't hate like they do  
am I ever on your mind?

cold, but I'm still here, blind, 'cause I'm so blind, say never  
we're far from comfortable this time  
cold, now we're so cold, mine, and you're not mine, say never  
we're far from obvious this time

COLD, you broke me from the very first night  
I'd love you 'til the day that I die  
I'm far too comfortable this time  
COLD, I loved you from the very first night  
you broke me 'til the day that I die  
I'm far too obvious this time

* * *

I'd never felt like slapping someone before. I'd felt like killing…I'd felt like punching…but I hadn't felt like slapping. There's a fine line between the three, killing, well, that's easy after a while, you just stop thinking and eventually you find yourself alone amidst a sea of broken burgundy stained dolls. Punching, when anger bubbles up so hard all you can do is lash out to keep from gnashing your own knuckles between your teeth and letting the blood pool stickily between your lips. But slapping…slapping is the finest level of an atomic burst of frustration that comes up on you like a flash flood, hot and angry and uncontrollable in its intensity to make someone else's flesh burn with the sharp sting of nails breaking flesh, raking down across a cheek and over lips left swollen and split, thin wells of vermillion fire trickling over the hurt in your own heart and soul.

I never thought I'd ever feel like doing that to someone. Especially not you. Definitely not you. Because for all the immaturity and self-debasement and condescending mire you kept yourself wallowing in, you'd always been conscientious of others. You'd leave the trash for weeks, but eventually you'd take it out. You'd fight for every scrap of food, and always let him have the last dumpling. Hell, you'd even sacrifice your last smoke to keep the perpetual frown just this side of homicidal.

But this…in the end you walk away and leave. You do the one thing you always asked me not to and I'm not supposed to want to wring your neck for it?! I'm supposed to just sit here and smile and place your beer in front of you and make some stupid comment about the proper disposal techniques for used cigarettes like nothing happened and you didn't break my heart and shatter my fragile existence that is so damn tied to you I can't see myself half the time without you in the picture and _God Dammit_ why am I not allowed to scream and curse and bitch and rant and throw a fucking temper tantrum like the rest of you!? _**Why!?**_

*breathe*

And in the end, after all the bandages are wrapped, _tightly_, I close the door and leave the others to their own thoughts and walk to your side. The two of us alone in the moonlight surrounded by blood and pain and fear and guilt and smoke and I reach out, pale fingers skimming through crimson hair that glows like banked coals in a fire and grip the ends just a bit too hard before collapsing beside you.

There's a moment of panic in your eyes, like you think I might have really died a bit and I have, at your loss from me even this much, I have. With my eyes closed I breathe deeply, the scent of Hi-Lights and blood washing over me before I give in and _taketaketake_ what I need to show me that you really are still here and alive and I don't care anymore if someone sees because for once, if only once, I will make you understand your life is not your own. It's mine and yours and ours and I will be damned if I let you or anyone else take it away from me again.

The look of startlement in those red, red eyes fading away to dawning comprehension almost makes me chuckle. I can just about see the 'oh' forming in your mind as you relax into me and as I push you none-to-gently from your chair, the hard, hard floor coming up so much faster than I imagined I know that I don't care about the pain and blood and fear and guilt, I just want. So let me have. Please God, let me have if only for the night, but I know I'll never be able to give you up, not now, not ever. I'll kill to keep you and that doesn't necessarily mean someone else. You brought me in out of the rain and showed me what warmth and sunlight and fire were and if you think I'll lay down and let it all be ripped from my fingers like fading flowers and shifting sands you've got another thing coming.

But there are fingers looping in my bandages and pulling me closer and marking me as surely as I'm marking you and maybe, maybe, I won't have to show you just how serious I am about the keeping you part. Maybe, if I'm lucky for once, you'll want to be kept by me. Maybe.

I can only pray. For both our sakes.

Fin.


	2. Flowers in the Dark

Title: **Flowers in the Dark**

Series: Saiyuki

Rating/Paring: M/85

AN: Other side of Temper Tantrum (Gojyo's POV)

Lyrics: (_Dark that Follows_-Evans Blue)

There's just so many things you never needed to say.  
Like I'm your other soul, but you can love them all  
Your tears are meaningless, they're written on your face.  
Just like your empty words, just like the chemical.  
Just like the disease that stains your lips tonight.  
You are the disease that's in my life.

If it's no ones fault,  
There's just no one to blame and nothing to say.  
This time it's no one's fault so there's nothing to save and no one to hate.  
But I want to so bad ... believe me.

There's just so many ways you never needed to be.  
Like cuts of empty space that never leaves your side.  
Now wipe that stupid look off of your face.  
You're not the finest one, you're not the only one.  
You're just a disease that stains her lips tonight.  
You are the disease that's in my life.

If it's no one's fault,  
There's just no one to blame and nothing to say.  
This time it's no one's fault.  
Oh, there's nothing to save and no one to hate.  
But I want to so bad.  
Believe me.

We're great in small doses  
I pronounce it.  
Your sad aside, love me.  
You're so proud of yourself and your disadvantage to me.  
Is just something you love to say (and hear that you're uncommon)  
The greater the dosage makes me mispronounce it to be.  
You're dead inside of me.  
You're dead inside of me.  
But when you're alone.  
And no one knows.  
It doesn't seem to matter.  
You are the same inside as me.

If it's no one's fault,  
There's just no one to blame and nothing to say.  
This time it's no one's fault  
So there's nothing to save and no one to hate.  
If I say I want you so bad.  
It doesn't matter.  
Don't believe me.  
You're just the disease that was in my ... life

***

I really thought they were going to kill me for this one; especially 'Kai. He was too quiet, too thoughtful and brooding and I knew that I was in it deep when he came back into the room and took a steadying breath before meeting my eyes for the first time since we high-tailed it out of the crumbling fortress. He hadn't even bothered trying to hide it. I screwed up, big time. I knew I shouldn't have left that way, I should have talked to him first, should have told him my fears and what I thought I had to do alone. He would have understood. He would have gone with me, if nothing else then as a silent form of support, the cool warmth at my back like the moon, but I didn't want him to see me like that. I wasn't planning on coming back.

He…he wouldn't have been able to take that; I knew it as well. That's why I left him with the others, if they were there Sanzo'd _make_ him keep moving and the monkey would make him feel needed, he wouldn't feel the need to…. How pathetic, I can't even think about it without a lump rising in my throat and my chest constricting almost as tight as these bandages he's wrapped me up in. My punishment, I assume. But it's just the outward show of his anger at me. Something for the others to see and think that he's okay now. That we're okay now. But we're not.

I can feel the steely resolve etched into his lithe frame as he quietly clicks the door shut between the rest of the world and us. Just us. Always just the two of us in the night…the darkness. I wonder if that's the real wound he's nursing. I didn't think it'd have hurt as much as it did seeing him turn from me and walk out that door. I know he had just gone to check on the others, that he was only a dozen feet away on the other side of the worn wooden door, but at that moment I really thought he'd left me and it about killed me.

Hemorrhaging emotions or blood, either one will take you from this world. His hand on the door knob…I had to physically will myself to breathe. When he walked back in…when he slipped those icy fingers over my cheek and across my scars, burying them in my hair…when he fell by my side I panicked. Reaching out to clasp his shoulder and stop his boneless descent to the hard floor but his eyes stopped me. He was…he looked like he was dieing. I felt like I had personally cut him open again. I felt my breath go as those deeply shadowed green eyes of his turned to me, pleading and hungry and so hurt…so very hurt that I wouldn't have stopped him even if I knew what was going to happen.

Maybe I always knew somewhere deep down inside and I just didn't want to admit it, because it would change things. Great things…almost perfect things and I was terrified that I'd screw it up again. I'm so glad he doesn't listen to a damn thing I say. No, that's a lie. He always listens even when I don't want him to or don't think he can hear me, he's always listening, always watching and doing everything he can for me and I'm a complete and total ass for not noticing earlier. Worse, I'm an idiot for thinking that I could ignore my own part in making him part of me, part of us. We can't do anything on our own and it's fucked up and damaged and bloody and diseased in its own way, but it's us and we're all we have and all we really need in this world.

Even torn and tattered and blood stained.

It takes a moment for my brain to process everything and then I'm giving as well as taking and he's trying to swallow me whole…life, body, and soul and if I could let him I would. He's so much warmer than the moon has a right to be. A cold that burns in its intensity and I can't believe I never realized it before. I want him. How terrified must I have been to ignore this passion and lust for life and living that flowed around me for so many years? I just want him. And now I understand, I didn't want to avenge those kids or those women or those humans in that village however many days ago…I want to avenge myself. I wanted someone to blame for all the shit in my life, but its no ones fault, it just is. He's shown me that the now is all that I can cling to, all I can hope for. I want the now forever. Can I do that?

He cuts a swatch of fire down my chest and quivering stomach with his tongue and between the sparks and the ungodly tightening of…everything, I feel my soul shred, ebb and flow and there he is--a part of me I'd never be able to cut out. I'll never want to. We are one and two and I know I'm not that smart but I think it makes some form of cosmic sense or something because we can't live without the other, so we might as well be one completely. His touch burns and I cry for more. I beg for more and claw at him to completely make me his; I'm useless on my own, but then again, so is he. So, if all else fails…we can be useless together, right?

Fin.


End file.
